Uncle is a millionaireelephant. He dresses in a purple dressing gown and rides about on a traction engine. His money comes from thousands of dwarfs who live in the top storeys of his house and pay him rent. His life should be an easy one. But his sworn enemies, the dreadful Badfort crowd, led by the frightful Beaver Hateman, are determined to make it a misery.

Uncle's house, Homeward, is even more amazing than Uncle himself. Sold to Uncle by the Wizard Blenkinsop, it is a magical place described as "about a hundred skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it... The towers are of many colours, and there are bathing pools and gardens among them, also switchbackrailways running from tower to tower, and water-chutes from top to bottom." Uncle himself does not know the full extent of the rooms, many of which are secret or hidden, or the inhabitants of his home.

Uncle's enemies, the Badfort crowd, inhabit a ramshacklefort called, obviously, Badfort. They constantly use intimidation and surreptitious attacks upon Homeward and its inhabitants, trying mainly to embarrass Uncle.

Despite the formal definitions, many cultures throughout the world use the word uncle to mean various things. Step-fathers and basically any sort of secondary or replacement father figure have been referred to as uncles in various cultures. Quite often this was brought about through the custom of having a man marry his brother's widow. The children would continue to call their mother's new husband their uncle (because that's what he was). If there was no brother, or the brother could not marry the widow, it simply became customary for the children to call any new father their uncle. In addition, some cultures would call older male cousins uncles (though it is not as common to refer to an older female cousin as aunt). Some children were often encouraged to call close friends of their parents "uncle" as well.

Grand / Great Uncles

If the brother of your parent is your uncle, what is the brother of your grandmother or grandfather? This relative is called a grand uncle or great uncle. Genealogypurists like the term grand uncle best because it fits well with the nomenclature for your direct ancestors - grand uncle goes with your grandparent. Similarly, your great-grand uncle is the brother of your great-grand parent. Each generation you go back adds another "great" at the beginning of the name of the relation. In contrast, if you go down the family tree instead of up it, you become the uncle, grand uncle, and great-grand uncle and your relative becomes your nephew/niece, grand nephew/niece, and great-grand nephew/niece.

Uncles Diagram

To help you visualize the relationships, below is an ASCII diagram. All relationships are based on relationships through the male relative for consistency. Only blood relatives are shown.